Typical livestock feeding apparatus and systems include one or many feeding stations attached to a pressurized feed line. Such feeding stations often must be removed due to general wear and tear, clogging caused by liquid feed blends having higher viscosities or solid particulate content, or any number of sanitary concerns germane to raising livestock. Some apparatus and systems are not manually operable by the feeding animals, and require an operator to pressurize the line, open a valve to allow feed to flow into the feeding stations, or a combination thereof. These tasks must be performed each feeding iteration, thereby increasing operational requirements and task management complexity for the facility staff.
Other apparatus and systems are manually operable by the feeding animals, but are not easily detachable from the feed line to allow for easy inspection, maintenance, or cleaning When a malfunction or sanitary hazard necessitates removal of one or more feeding stations, facility operation is disrupted because the entire pressurized feed line must be depressurized to remove one or more problem feeding units. Often, the procedures for depressurizing the feed line and removing malfunctioning or unsanitary feeding stations are so detrimental to operational efficiency that the unusable feeding units are capped and left in place in their unusable state. Livestock then must either be inefficiently fed in smaller groups, or standard feeding group sizes are maintained at the risk of underfeeding livestock due to the increased animal to feeding station ratio. Many facilities are designed with a feeding station present in each stall or pen, and simply cannot operate with unusable feeding stations. As a result, lengthy and inefficient line depressurization and feeding station replacement procedures must be undergone each time a single feeding station malfunctions or manifests a sanitary concern.
Livestock utilizing such feeding stations are of diverse species, all of which are inherently prone to growth and changing nutritional intake needs. When a plurality of animals feed from feeding stations located on the same feed line, feeding station flow rate parameters must be customized per each feeding animal's species, size, and nutritional requirements. Or, stalls built with individual feeding stations must be reconfigured when stalls are repurposed for use by an animal or animals of different size or species. This will require facilities to purchase and install several different types of feeding stations